CHAPTER ONE

      ROWAN FARRINGDON DREADED Sunday dinners with her parents. The tradition was a new one, instated exactly one month after her parents had retired and bought themselves a gleaming glory of a house that has all the showiness of a museum and no warmth whatsoever. Even the floral arrangements were formal.

      She’d made a mistake two months ago, when she’d turned up with an armful of scented overblown cream- and butter-coloured roses and had had them relegated to the laundry sink—doubtless to be tossed out at her mother’s earliest convenience.

      She hadn’t made that mistake again.

      For some reason her mother loved this house, and insisted that Rowan—as her only child and heir—love the house as well.

       Never going to happen.

      Rowan’s hurried ‘I’m well set up already, Mum. Sell the house. Spend every last penny you have before you go, I really won’t mind …’ probably hadn’t been the most politically sensible thought ever voiced, but Rowan had meant every word of it.

      To say that Rowan and her mother neither knew nor understood each other was something of an understatement.

      Four people graced the enormous round table at this particular evening’s formal dinner. Rowan’s mother, father, grandfather, and herself. Presumably the round table gave the impression that everyone sitting at it was of equal importance, but the actual conversation around the table told a different story.

      Rowan shared a glance with her grandfather as her father launched into yet another monologue that revolved around dining with dignitaries and very important people she’d never heard of. Both her parents had been Army in her younger years, and had made the switch to foreign ambassador postings later on. They’d led the expat life for most of their lives, while Rowan had been largely left behind with her grandfather. His job hadn’t exactly been geared towards the raising of children either—he’d been an Army general—but he’d never once left her behind and she loved him all the more for it.

      Rowan’s phone buzzed once from its pocket in her handbag, sitting on the side table where she’d put it when she arrived, and Rowan winced. She knew what was coming.

      ‘I thought I asked you to turn that off?’ her mother told her coolly, her almond-brown eyes hard with displeasure.

      People often thought brown eyes were soft, liquid and lovely.

      Not all